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Madison County commissioners delay final action on comp plan after township rezoning debate
Summary
Commissioners agreed to refine map changes for Deer Creek Township and recommended that regional planning postpone final action on the comprehensive plan to allow staff to correct parcel designations, reconcile the strategic growth corridor with the comp‑plan document and gather applicant materials.
Madison County commissioners on Dec. 9 agreed to delay final action on a set of proposed land‑use map changes after an extended discussion about rezoning requests in Deer Creek Township and whether a long strategic growth corridor should remain in the county’s plans.
The discussion centered on several property owners’ requests to change parcels from agriculture to planned residential development (PRD or PRV) and trustees’ concerns that rejecting changes could invite annexation by the city of London. Commissioners asked staff for clearer parcel lists, confirmation of which parcels are already designated PRD on current maps, and a narrower set of edits to present to regional planning.
County staff told the board that some parcels shown on the interactive map were already designated PRD in prior versions but that other changes appeared on a November map that trustees and property owners found confusing. Commissioners debated whether to remove a long, linear growth corridor that stretches between London and Plain City from the strategic plan maps; proponents said removing the strip would reduce ad‑hoc rezoning requests, while opponents said doing so could prompt early rezoning applications by owners who see the corridor removed.
“I’m concerned that if we don’t support it, it’s gonna be part of London,” said an attendee representing township trustees, summarizing the fear that losing county support could accelerate annexation — a point commissioners acknowledged as a driver of urgency for trustees.
Staff proposed a two‑step approach: update the county’s internal strategic plan and growth corridors in 2026, then perform a modest comprehensive plan update in 2027 to align the maps and text. Commissioners instead asked staff to prepare targeted map edits for the parcels discussed and recommended that regional planning postpone action tonight so the county can submit a corrected shapefile and clarify which document (maps only or the full 2022 document) the board intends to approve.
The commissioners instructed staff to return the revised maps and a clear memo of changes for final approval at a subsequent meeting.
Next steps: staff will prepare the parcel‑level changes, update the interactive map layers and recommend whether to remove or redraw the contested corridor; regional planning was asked to postpone taking final action to allow those edits.
